The Dance That Almost Ruined
My Marriage (Part 1)
...Dance Class Stories, Part 1
"We're taking dance lessons."
Not,
"Would you like to?"
Not,
"What do you think?"
Just the verbal equivalent of a court order.
I said no.
Without saying a word, she reached over, picked up the last two slices of pepperoni pizza I'd been saving all evening, and set them on the kitchen counter.
Then she took my wrist.
Negotiations were over.
Marriage, after enough years, isn't built on romance.
It's built on knowing exactly which hostage to take.
My wife is a few years younger than I am, but she's spent our entire marriage managing me the way an exhausted older sister supervises the family idiot.
And honestly?
Fair.
You don't forget the people who carried you through life.
Old enemies fade.
Old kindness never does.
So when she says we're dancing...
we're dancing.
If she pointed at a landscaping rock and announced,
"That's a dumpling,"
I'd probably ask whether soy sauce was involved.
After thirty years together, resistance becomes less of a strategy and more of an expensive hobby.
The community center offered everything.
Ballroom.
Foxtrot.
Cha-cha.
Line dancing.
Swing.
One instructor looked cheerful enough to sell timeshares.
Another had the terrifying energy of someone who says things like,
"Let's wake up those hips!"
Then I saw it.
Tango.
Now we're talking.
If pink can be a real man's color, tango can absolutely be a real man's dance.
At least that's what I immediately told myself.
I'd forgotten that, somewhere in my twenties, tango had been my entire fantasy of masculinity.
The dramatic pauses.
The sharp turns.
The expression that says,
"I've suffered for love."
Despite having never actually suffered for love.
In my imagination, I wasn't just dancing.
I was devastating women emotionally while wearing polished leather shoes.
Apparently midlife doesn't erase your old delusions.
It simply gives them reading glasses.
Walking home, I could already picture it.
One month from now people would whisper,
"That's the Tango Guy."
Three months later I'd accidentally become a local legend.
Six months after that?
Probably Argentina.
Life, however, has exquisite comic timing.
Two days later I sprained my ankle mowing the lawn.
Not rescuing children from a burning building.
Not climbing Everest.
Grass.
I was defeated by suburban landscaping.
The following Thursday I sat on a folding chair hugging my wife's coat, purse, water bottle and sweater like an underqualified coat rack.
I looked less like a husband than airport lost-and-found.
"You're okay sitting out?"
she asked.
"I'll survive," I said heroically.
This, it turns out, was optimistic.
Her partner was assigned by the instructor.
Tall.
Early thirties.
Confident.
Sporting one of those magnificent Kaiser mustaches that makes a man look as though he's either conducting an orchestra or invading Belgium.
His shirt was unbuttoned exactly one button beyond respectable.
Not enough to file a complaint.
Enough to make me suspicious.
He smiled.
Too confidently.
Another red flag.
Then the music started.
He placed one hand on my wife's back.
She followed.
And suddenly the woman who occasionally trips over perfectly level carpeting was gliding across the floor like she'd secretly trained in Buenos Aires.
Excuse me?
Where has this woman been?
Who is this man?
And why does he appear to have unlocked downloadable content in my own marriage?
Every time they snapped their heads together—
left—
I physically flinched.
Right—
my neck twitched in sympathy.
Another turn.
Another snap.
By the fourth one, I was convinced I needed medical attention.
I have cervical disc problems.
I get a neck massage almost every night just to remain a functioning member of society.
Watching this man fling people's vertebrae around for recreational purposes felt deeply irresponsible.
Someone should report him.
Possibly to chiropractors.
And then...
something deeply embarrassing happened.
Jealousy.
Not the dramatic movie kind.
The quiet, middle-aged kind.
The kind that quietly walks into the room carrying a folding chair, sits in the corner, and refuses to leave.
I hadn't seen that feeling in decades.
I honestly thought we'd both aged out of it.
Apparently not.
Apparently jealousy doesn't retire.
It just waits patiently until your wife starts looking surprisingly graceful with a handsome man who owns more shirt buttons than he chooses to use.
Next Thursday, everything got worse.
π [Continue to Part 2 "The Tango Guy"]
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